Random updates

I can't believe it we've made it a year. Eric has completed a whole year of school, I have completed yet another year home with the kids. I am only about 50% more insane than I was last year at this time. But the big milestone is that we thought if we could make it through this first year of this graduate school process we could make it through the rest of the duration, however long it would be. Certainly things are different than we expected, but overall we are doing well and I guess we are stronger, isn't that how the saying goes? This time has made us review our priorities realize what is important and what is not. I think we've also decided what to do if we do eventually have spending money. Of course that changes daily.
The kids seem to be doing well. I think Gwen is pretty excited to go to school, in about a month! She is a little confused though, she thinks her VBS teacher is going to be her preschool teacher. It is going to be rather interesting to drop her off and then have Nate. I think he is going to be lost without her and I am hoping that errand running will be easier with just him, but I don't think it will be! We are still working on several things with Gwen, manners and being nicer to her brother. She apparently needs more focused attention. I am working on trying to work with her on some of that stuff but I really hadn't noticed how much she just grabs stuff from Nate and just expects him to take it. I am also trying to encourage them to work out their stuff on their own. I don't think that's going to work out though...
Nate, what can I say about that kid, except trouble. Man does that kid listen only when he want to. I don't know really how to make him listen, sometimes he is great, sometimes I just want to pull out all my hair! Randomly he has started peeing on the potty, only in public, when Gwen goes to the potty. He did start peeing on the potty here at home first, but I haven't convinced him since then to do it again, and seriously in my head I had no intention of potty training him for a while, like when he was 2.5 or 3,certainly not 2! So, I haven't really been pushing it. Because as we may remember, I am not the best at remembering to remind the children to pee. (well you might not know that, but I am, I hope all my children have the iron bladders like Gwen and that we don't have to utilize public restrooms a lot.) I am looking forward to having some Nate & me time while Gwen is in school. I feel like Gwen gets Mommy and me time while Nate is napping, but Nate doesn't get that time. Maybe he will be less of a wild child if he gets one on one time...I suspect we will spend a lot of time reading, he will read and read and read with you...
In other news I have volunteered to co-lead our Mom's group at our Church. I just hope that someone volunteers to co-host with me, otherwise I don't think I will be able to do it, being new in town and all. Monthly they schedule a someone come and talk to the group or just talk about stuff. Considering I haven't been a member of this group for a year yet, what do I know. I guess I am just feeling that I've got to get out there meet people and make friends. I feel like I have been meeting people, we have like this "honeymoon" period and then things happen and I don't see or hear from them again. I used to get upset and worked up but whatever. I don't want to waste time and energy worrying about when I could be worrying about other things, like my fighting kids or my garden. Whatever has been eating my garden has apparently found greener pastures and I actually harvested 2 plum tomatoes today and am excited to make "Penne alla Vodka" tomorrow with stuff from my garden. We have been harvesting cucumbers and some onions and a little bit of lettuce and I am so excited because it looks like my eggplants are sprouting!!! I am hoping to get some eggplants this year, because I geniunely like eggplants but they are not something that I routinely buy, but if I just had them around, I would eat them.
Nothing on Eric tonight, this post has taken entirely too long...he's the same old same old, going to work, coming home, doing stuff but nothing I think that could be reported on the blog as newsworthy...maybe that is just because I am too tired to add anything else!

Beaches

A couple weeks ago I found out we had "beach" around here. There is a big lake here and I don't know if the sand is naturally occuring there, but it was there and we were there and we had a good time. The water was probably about 80 deg, perfect for me, growing up at the Gulf, but my girlfriend that was there thought it was too hot, not even refreshing, the kids and I loved it. Sadly it took out a pair of swim shoes I had for 10 years or something, sure it isn't that sad to most of you, but I start at the pool next week, what I am going to do. So, here are some pictures of the kids getting ready to go to the "beach".
Gwen was a little freaked out about going into the water and drowning, fortunately we had this swim suit with the floaties in the drawer still. She felt much better.
We packed a lunch and ate after we played in the water. The kids had a great time, Nate didn't really want to get into the water, he sat on the edge and played with the toys.
Gwen was all in. She loved it!

It was a little challenging to bring the kids to the beach by themselves, because they both wanted to do different things. But, we all survived and had a good time. It was a good dry run for our next beach trip. One of our friends from Huntsville was going to the beach for the holiday weekend (4th of July) and asked if we'd like to join them. We said YES! It was theoretically a 3.5 hour drive, I won't go into why we won't ever know how long it was! But needless to say we all had a great time and are thankful for the opportunity to see our friends. Sadly, I didn't get any pictures of us all together, apparently because we were having too much fun to pull out the camera! Seriously, the kids loved the beach and the water (the Atlantic, cooler than the lake!) The kids learned to jump the waves and play in the sand and have some fun...here's a slide show from the beach trip.

Dr's appointment

Today was Gwen's 4 year Dr's appointment. Yay Gwen!
Here are her stats:
Weight: 35lb ?oz (50%)
Height: 39 in (50%)
She has grown almost 3lbs and 3in...I don't know exactly for the weight, but for the height 2.5 inches in a year! Same percentages as last year, and the Dr mentioned BMI-which she said was a little high in the normal range...nothing to be worried about. Gwen appears to be growing normally and doing everything on schedule, so we don't have any worries. We decided to go ahead and give Gwen her 5year shots because we weren't sure if the preschool required them, and thought better to be safe than have to come back later. So she got 4 shots today! That didn't go so well, she cried and cried and told me she couldn't really walk, it hurt. She seems to be doing fine now and when has even allowed me to take off her bandaids. That was hilarious. The way this Doctor's office did the visit they had 2 nurses come in and do the shots simultaneously. And then they put the bandaids on, well we talked alot about the bandaids-we don't use bandaids at home. So then when one started to come off a little she showed it to me and I just ripped it off-fast, fast fast! She kind of looked shocked for a minute and she said "Thank you!" I asked her if she wanted me to pull the other one off and she said, "No". But, she just came up to me and asked me to pull the other off, so all is well.
Sadly after we went to the Dr's office we went grocery shopping and on the way there Gwen said, I have to go potty! I was a little distracted trying to speed us out of the car and get to the bathroom on the other side of the store from the entrance that I accidentally scrapped a woman with the cart. I stopped immediately and apologyzed and she started in on me "I know you had to see me here" Well, of course I did, but on those carts to use with kids, you can't really see that at the bottom it comes out again. I felt terrible, I still do, but part of me ceased to feel sorry when she was so mean and yelling at me. I told myself, don't let her bad attitude ruin your mood! Sure it was my fault, but it wasn't like I just ran off and didn't apologyze. Grr lady, I hope your day gets better and someone that you tell that story to will tell you how hard it is to drive those big carts! (especially when the one that has to pee is standing on the other side trying to help you steer)...I wanted to laugh though when she said "you are lucky I wasn't really hurt", what is she going to do, sue me, and get what from me exactly, we don't have any thing left to give!

Happy 4th Birthday!

Today my little big girl turns 4. I'd like to say it seems like yesterday that I birthed her and I miss those baby years, I don't. I like her and appreciate who she is now. How sweet she is and how she seems to be turning into a cleanly person. I hope this keeps up, because her brother, not so neat, but then she wasn't so cleanly at 2, so maybe he will be too. But, this isn't about him now is it. This is about Gwen, back to Gwen. She is definitely coming into her own as a person. She is still not sure about things and has definite opinions and you never know when she is going to change her mind. For example, after Nate had his birthday cake we discussed what kind of cake she wanted she told me a Strawberry Shortcake cake. One with Strawberry shortcake on it. For almost a month she told us that and then within the last week, she changed her mind! She decided she wanted a cookie cake! Ugh, well I made her a cookie cake, because that's what I do as a Mom!
She also seems to really be looking forward to school. I hope that doesn't fade. She had a great time at "Bible school" and wants to go back. I was so proud of her going to class everyday without fussing and participating in the concert. I was so proud, had to fight back the tears. I suspect the same thing will happen come preK and Kindergarten.
She is mostly a good kid, she does have her moments when she doesn't want to do what we ask her to, but mostly she is a good listener and if she didn't have to compete with that troublesome younger brother I think she would be much more cooperative.
Sadly today she woke up with congestion, but doesn't seem to have any other symptoms, but maybe a little crankiness. We had a big day today we got up ate breakfast, opened presents, picked blueberries (~2.5lbs, she was the star picker!), played at the play area, had lunch, cake, quiet time, went to a party with the bouncy house, went to Best Buy, came home, attempted dinner and then put the kids to bed! A day we won't forget about for a while. I think fun was had by all! Here is a slide show from today.

Happy Father's day...cookies

I realize that Father's day was almost a month ago, I think by now you must all realize that I am a little behind in the blog posting. I am thinking that at least I am getting it done-better late than never. At least that is the philosophy I am going with today. So we made cookies for Daddy for Father's Day, this time I let Nate help decorate.
Look he actually decorated the cookies, before he tried he to eat them all.

Look Gwen is getting to be quite the expert. Of course we still have to review that 5 lbs of sprinkles is doesn't really stick to 0.5lb of icing.

Nate hard at work...do you see the cookie he completed

Do you see what I mean about the sprinkles?

I let them eat a couple cookies.

The cookies we made...I helped on a couple.

More of the spoils.

Nate sneaking more cookies.

RAIN!?

Over a month ago we had rain, we really haven't had any since and I think it had been a while since we rain, so I did what ever responsible parent would do, I put a chair by the door and let them play outside. (And yes, Gwen is holding a baby in her dress)

They had a grand time.

Nate loved it!!!

Nate wanted to play in all the puddles.

Picnics

Conveniently for the Grandparents the kids birthdays are a month apart so when they want to buy group gifts instead of a bunch of toys, highly encouraged! For their birthdays this year Grandma got them a picnic table with umbrella! We would probably use it all the time if it wasn't so hot/buggy. But when it is not so hot and not real buggy we use it and the kids seem to enjoy it! Of course they get a little distracted by playing with the umbrella, but I don't have any pictures of that.
I don't really know what is going on here, but this is where it placed it in the backyard, since it is rather inconvenient to have it right in front of the back yard. We will likely move it again later but for now, a good spot.

Bad planning

You'd think I'd learn my lesson, not so much! Well, I guess that is not true, I must start looking at calendars when I plan stuff. I looked at the map and realized that Kiki is not that far from us, relatively speaking. I asked her if she'd like to meet-up. She said sure! I hadn't realized that she hadn't met Nate yet! We decided to meet-up almost half way between us. I gave Kiki some dates to meet but didn't check with my calendar, oops! If I had been thinking clearly I wouldn't have planned a meet-up for the day after VBS week, but what can you do? Maybe I will learn for next time. Sadly, we got stuck in traffic, I don't know how long poor Kiki had to wait for us. We decided to meet up at Cracker Barrel. It was good, Nate was beside himself with sleepiness and apparently Gwen was also, they both fell asleep on the way home. We ate lunch hung out on the porch. I think we all had a nice time. Here's a slideshow from after lunch.

Sleeping

Oh full night of sleep, how we miss you! We are still struggling with this whole sleeping thing with Nate. It is pretty terrible at this point, not a single person in our house got a full night of sleep last night. UGH! Nate is suffering from what, we don't know, but seriously wish we could figure out. What we do know is that he missed full sleep in bed naps because of VBS last week and is having problems staying in the room to sleep. The boy is tired, so tired! And we don't know quite what to do. I think last night was our limit. And while it was terrible to be sitting up with Eric last night at 1-3 in the morning (I don't really know what time, I'm just guessing) we were able to work some things out. I think without realizing it, we turned Nate into a kid who needs us to get back to sleep. We should have known the signals, but I think we were too tired to notice! We are going to try to remedy the situation tonight. I think we have decided to split up the kids so Gwen can still sleep and Nate can thrash about in their bedroom while he relearns to put himself to sleep and more importantly go back to sleep if awoken.
Nate is cute though...despite his stubborn nature. And really I wish the poor kid could remember to fall asleep on his own. But last night when we were in the midst of the lack of sleep deciding what to do while listening to Nate repeatedly say "can you tuck me in?" He would say really funny things. I was in the bedroom researching our options and Nate stops crying and really sweetly says "I need to come in". Eric tells me he also said "Daddy hit me". I am now immune to the he/she hit me thing from the kids. So sad, sorry!
Here's hoping that we have a better night tonight, but I think it will be a while before I sleep through the night again.

Happy Anniversary

I've always been a little confused, is the 7 year itch start in your 7th year of marriage or after you've been married 7 years? It isn't actually a burning question or something I think of a lot, but when I think of our 7th anniversary I wonder what the 7th year itch is all about and why the phrase came about. We got a check in the mail today, wohoo!, so we decided to go to dinner with the kids. We don't go out to eat all that much anymore. Eric teasingly mentioned Taco Bell and well we should have probably went with that instead of his first choice! His first choice was a Thai/Sushi place that although the food was good (except they didn't give us rice with our entree and they don't appear to have sushi anymore) took FOREVER! Seriously, we walked in, no one else in there, they sat us, took our order and we SAT for 20+ min waiting for our food...and that was just for the appetizer, we had to wait another at least 10 minutes for our food food and we ordered the kids soup and that came LAST! UGH! What was really the last straw was when the people who walked in 15-20 minutes after us got their food before we got our appetizer! Man was I ticked...seriously if you aren't ready to feed people especially people with 2 young kids PLEASE let them know! We'll come back on a different day, but now we aren't going to go back at all!
Anniversaries don't seem to be that big of a deal around here, they really have never been, with either of us. I think that's a good thing. Not to say we don't think about it but I am honestly so confused I thought our anniversary was tomorrow. I thought the 28th was tomorrow...which once you get the day wrong in your head hard to get it right and celebrate. My Mom says its important to celebrate so we did go to dinner and I made us an anniversary pie (Apricot/peach) and we hung out and talked...I skipped the gym. I guess a nice day overall. It would have been even nicer had Nate not disturbed our sleep last night...I can honestly say I feel no itch and am content to live out the rest of my days with Eric, even though he can drive me crazier than I ever thought possible. He's a great Dad and husband, what more could a girl ask for?

The videos

So, I have these videos, probably only interesting to Grandma, but I am going to post them here, so if you want to see them you can! I am so proud of Gwen. The getting up on stage thing in front of people, always a gamble, but she did it, she sang and she did most if not all of the hand motions and was cute too, but I might be a little biased! The first video is everyone coming in, Eric took it not knowing when Gwen would appear, so it is a pretty long video, she comes in at 1:33, if you look REAL close you can see her wave as soon as she walks in...of course if you want to hear Nate's stirring commentary on chairs and thinking everyone who comes in the door is Mommy or Gwen, go ahead and take a listen to the whole thing!

Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

The other video is Gwen doing her song with the whole group. Eric apologizes for the quality of the videos, apparently Nate thought he should try and eat the camera cord while Eric was recording. You'll know my girl, she's the one that did the sheep signs backwards...my poor left handed kid! Still cute though!

VBS concert baa from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

I haven't viewed the other videos and it is likely they won't be posted, one is of me doing the "muscle" song as our song leader described it and Eric thought it was too funny...

VBS

aka Vacation Bible School. So I found out our Church was doing the VBS and I thought this would be a good experience for Gwen, it is at her school for next year, so she'd be familiar with it, I'd be there but I didn't volunteer to be her teacher, so she could get used to a morning program and if I volunteered she and Nate could go for free...win-win! What I didn't realize is I couldn't handle the whole process! And I don't actually mean the leaving the kids part, I mean the guy that was in charge, although he is a great guy, organizationally he is challenged and stuck me out to dry! Sure, I signed up for the 6-7-8th graders, but seriously, the guy gave me no guidance and did everything last minute. I went a little crazy and told him I needed more guidance. He kept telling me that he just couldn't find the volunteers and he was sorry but there was nothing he could do. I am sorry, but I suspect he doesn't get the volunteers because he is so challenged organizationally! I can't imagine that I am the only person that would have liked more information.
But, the kids did great. Well, Gwen did great, I couldn't be more proud of her, sure she broke down a little most afternoons when she saw me and wouldn't participate, during the goodbye stuff, but she got up on that stage Thurs night and performed! I had no idea what to expect, but she did the motions and still sings the songs. So cute! Nate has pretty much lost the will to live, at least I suppose he has because 2 nights of the last 4 he has been up in the middle of the night and wouldn't go back to sleep! I am looking forward to getting him back on schedule so we can sleep through the night again.
My kids the middle schoolers were pretty good kids. They got along pretty well and one of the days thanked me and told me his son had the best time at this camp! I was shocked to hear it because I wouldn't have expected that out of him, but glad to hear they all had a good time. I was saved by my new friend from Church, she's a teacher and helped me the first 2 days and helped me plan the whole week. There was a definite difference when she was there, she just exudes the control, I apparently do not. Fortunately one of the girl's Dad was able to step in the other 3 days so I didn't have to teach on my own.
Eric took pictures and video of the concert. I uploaded the pictures into a slide show for you, pretty boring, I'll upload the video later, I know Mom is dying to see it. Gwen was quite cute, if I do say so myself. I was so proud of her. We got a CD of the music from camp, her song isn't on it, but that hasn't stopped us from listening to the "Jesus songs" in the car (as Nate says when he requests songs). Any how that is now over and on to the rest of the sweltering summer activities!

Kites, lists and dishes

So my little girl, no longer a baby, is a sweet helpful type of girl. She gets excited to help me, I can usually bribe her to do something if I say, want to help me clean the bathrooms later...and she's all, YES! I know, crazy! So, last week when I had to make a cake for Nate, guess who was my big helper! Not just with the cake, she also did the dishes!

Thanks big girl!

Look at that sweet girl sleeping. This is from the same day we got Nate asleep with his book in his hands.

Here is another story of my sweet girl. I feel like we are doing a Chinese Water Torture on the poor girl, I think she has wanted a scooter since she has seen the other kids in the neighborhood with theirs, so almost a year. And now her little brother has gotten a scooter! Terrible! Every time Nate would get off his scooter on his birthday, she would sneak on it. Look at that look on her face.

Eric and I have been known to make the lists, I make grocery lists, Eric makes to do lists, Gwen also has started to make her own lists...see:

She then put it on the fridge, so I would remember to pick it up at the grocery store...a princess's job is never done!

These pictures are from May! The kids are obsessed with kites. One day while we were home the kids and I took the kites out front. Gwen decided that the kites weren't flying to her liking, so she ran and got her bike. I ran and got the camera. I had no idea what she was doing, but I knew I should take pictures.

She decided she was going to sit on the handle.

And then she wanted to watch if the kite would go.

And then I explained to her should go and not watch the kite...

It didn't work out as well as she intended but it did work...It got tangled up at one point, so I helped her put the handle under the seat on the pipe and she got a moving. It is pretty exciting to see her come up with ideas and help her tweak her ideas to help them work.

An update

I have some pictures and some thoughts to go along with each picture. First is a picture of my kids from Easter. I think this might the only picture we have of the 2 of them together, where they both are sitting and looking at the camera. You can tell the only reason they cooperated is because of the chocolate. This next picture is of my strawberry tart. Think I mentioned that one time I went picking strawberries and then I made a tart. Here is said tart! (pardon the spill on the table that hasn't been cleaned up yet, well I mean it was cleaned up shortly after the picture, we don't still have it on the table). It was quite yummy! Pastry, creamy filling, and yummy strawberries!
This is the picture my Mom has been waiting for. Several days ago I spoke to Mom on the phone, she was having computer technical difficulties. She all of sudden heard Eric saying to me "come, quickly", silence and then a lot of laughing. Nate had fallen to sleep, like this! This isn't the first time he fell asleep like that, he has fallen asleep like this in the car.
My garden! Well, half of it. I have more somewhere else. Mostly potatoes and onions.

This is my first gardening experiment on the big scale and we've been very excited. Nate has picked some of the cherry tomatoes at this orange color (2). And most recently we have discovered that something is eating them. Gwen and I checked the garden yesterday and something had half eaten one of the ripe cherry tomatoes, later that day it was gone, all of it and the other ripening tomato. I am not pleased by this development, first my ripening strawberries, now this! I would like to declare war on this creature, I just need to know what I am up against! I don't have enough space to keep us all fed!